Wednesday, February 10, 2010

SmartBro and FaceBook Do Not Mix

One of the joys of being online is to connect to friends using social media and networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. You want to get into the act and are asking if it is wise to get SmartBro so that you can claim your own personal space in Facebook.

SmartBro always touts its up to two mbps download speed. I already mentioned in my previous posts that this is very far from the truth. But there is another problem aside from the slow download speed; and that is very, very slow upload speed. Try asking a SmartBro sales agent or service representative what the download speed of SmartBro Share-It is and they’ll instantly tell you “up to 2mbps, ma’am.” Try asking the same person what the upload speed is and they’ll go “ah, uhm, well…”

Let me answer it for you. SpeedTest.net says it’s 3kbps. Yep, three. That is 0.003mbps. The problem here is that you need a decent upload speed to upload all your photos and video clips to your Facebook account and SmartBro is not up to the task. A Facebook account with no photos are not much fun. So, to spice things up in your Facebook account, skip SmartBro and look for something else—preferably DSL.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Smart Bro Is Very Problematic

I can’t think of any good reason why anyone would get Smart Bro once they become aware of all the problems that SmartBro has to offer. First, SmartBro is problematic to use for downloading torrents; Second, SmartBro is also problematic to use for downloading in sites like RapidShare and MegaUpload. So, what’s with the “Sabay-sabay download” jingle if even one download is already very problematic?

SmartBro speed is very problematic. When I first got my router, I suffered a mere 30kbps connection speed. It increased a bit after constantly (almost every day) calling the hotline. But then, it would slow down again after a couple days and I would have to call the hotline again. If you subscribe to SmartBro, you will be paying a lot only to suffer all of these problems. SmartBro is nothing but problems. If you don’t beleive me, you’ll soon find it out yourself. But by then, you are already locked in. Get SmartBro only if you find it stimulating to memorize your SmartBro account number and to call SmartBro’s hotline daily for a chat with the bored CSR who just got smacked by the previous caller.

SmartBro connection is also very problematic. You get connected, disconnected, reconnected and disconnected all the time. That’s funny because one of the reasons that attract people to SmartBro Plug-It and SmartBro Share-It is mobility. You can theoretically have an internet connection anywhere where there is an HSDPA signal and an outlet in the case of SmartBro Share-It. But in practice, this is not the case. Connection is very problematic even in a fixed, well-placed location. Get SmartBro only if you find it fun to confuse your Skype or Yahoo Messenger buddies when they see you logged-in …and out …and in …and out again.

Overall, Smart Bro is nothing but problems. Get it only if your resume states: “Likes problem solving.”

Monday, February 8, 2010

SmartBro Share-It and Plug-It Does Not Work Well With Torrents

Do you have some torrent files to download using Bit torrent clients? I have. But I found out that SmartBro does not play well with torrents. So, if you want to subscribe to Smart Bro with the aim of downloading megabytes of torrents, forget it.

I am fond of Linux and FreeBSD. These free Operating System software are widely available in Bit torrent, which is a nice way of distributing software as it is bandwidth efficient. The problem is that these software are huge, and there are lots of them in the form of different distributions. They also get updated frequently so you also need to download them often.

Downloading torrents, however, requires that you are connectable to peers in order for you to have a decent download speed. If not, then you’d have to make do with speeds of around 4-5 kB/s on most torrents specially those with low seeds to peers ratio. Unfortunately, you are not connectable if you are using Smart Bro Share-It or SmartBro Plug-It. Aside from the fact that a lot of SmartBro subscribers share the same IP address as I discussed in my previous post about how SmartBro does not play well with Rapidshare and MegaUpload, it also has this problem for torrent users which they call a double NAT configuration. This simply means that you are not connectable to peers and that most torrents are practically out of your reach.

If ever you subscribe to SmartBro’s Share-It and Plug-It service, just know that you cannot satisfactorily use it with torrents and RapidShare or MegaUpload. I guess the most downloading that SmartBro can do is downloading emails. :D

Smart Bro Share It or Plug It is Not Good for Downloading Using RapidShare, MegaUpload and Similar Sites

If you plan to subscribe to SmartBro so that you can download from sites such as RapidShare, MegaUpload and others, I’ll tell you right here right now that you will have a hard time doing that. Even assuming that you will be able to reach their claimed speed of up to 2Mbps (which is impossible) or even 1Mbps (next to impossible) you still won’t  be able to make use of that (theoretical) speed.

I found that out when a relative directed me to a link in RapidShare. It was a video of her child which someone uploaded there as it’s too big to send through email. When I tried to download the link, RapidShare spat an error telling me that my IP address is already downloading a file and that I can’t download another while that download is going on. What?! Am not!

Turns out that a lot of Smart Bro subscribers share the same IP address and when one of them downloads stuff from RapidShare or MegaUpload, others can’t download from those sites because even if they are separate SmartBro subscribers, RapidShare or MegaUpload sees them as one since they all have the same IP address. And those sites don’t allow more than one free download at the same time by the same IP.

No worry, I thought. I’ll just have to wait until the other gal finishes her download. Then I’ll start mine. The problem is, you do not know when the other’s going to finish so you have to keep on hitting refresh on your browser. This is a tedious thing to do. And remember, other users are also hitting their refresh buttons; so, this is a race on who gets in the site first.

Let us say that you managed to get in ahead of the other guys by three in the morning. Your problem is not yet solved. You see, videos are large files and RapidShare and MegaUpload only allows approximately 100MB chunks. So, one video file has to be broken up into around 32 parts. To get the whole video, you have to download all 32 individual parts. Now, 31 more races ahead.

The bottom line is that Smart Bro Share-It or Smartbro Plug-It does not play well with sites like RapidShare or MegaUpload. And since SmartBro does not work well with torrents as I will discuss in my next post, either, it is useless for downloading practically anything more than a few megabytes.

SmartBro is Playing Tricks on You

To all SmartBro subcribers: have you ever noticed that your connection speed will increase (a little) after you call customer service and then return to snail’s pace again after a day or two? Then, you would have to call them again. Why can’t they just maintain the speed? I’ve been through this cycle a lot since I subscribed to this problematic SmartBro Share-It service. And I tell you, it ain’t fun. If you don’t want problems with your Internet, then I suggest that you stay away from Smart Bro because with it, trouble is all you’ll get. Oh, and you’ll also memorize your Smart Bro Share It number in no time because you’ll need it every time you call.

New Bloggers Having Smart Bro Problems

As I have said in my first post, this blog’s mission is to inform future ISP subscribers of the poor quality of Smart Broadband’s Smart Bro Internet. Without SmartBro reviews in blogs like this, the public would easily be deceived by SmartBro’s numerous false and misleading advertising. And after they fall for it, Smart Bro’s well-engineered contract will make sure that they get locked in for good. It will now be very difficult for them to terminate or end the Smart Bro contract.

Hopefully, people will listen to the warnings in this blog and save themselves the trouble and expense of subscribing to SmartBro. But even if they do not heed the warnings here, I still don’t consider it a loss. Sooner or later, they will find out that Smart Broadband is a hoax and will blog about it. This will spread the word out to more people faster.

If you choose to subscribe to SmartBro’s Share It or Plug It junk despite the warnings in this blog, at least warn others after you realize that you’ve just walked into a trap.